Odir

You know, I had some trouble figuring out what this site is all about because the moment I opened odir.org, I saw a bunch of thumbnails that weren't actually working. I thought something fucked up must have happened because more stuff didn't work than it actually did. As it turns out, that's just the way the home page looks, but I have no idea why.

Even though they didn't put a ton of work into making this place look good, I kind of figured out what it was all about. It's right there in the description, but here's the catch. That description is in German, so you'll have to translate it in order to actually find out what it's about. Anyway, I did that part instead of you, so you won't have to bother doing such a shitty thing. Basically, that sentence translates to "Directory of similar websites," which didn't mean a lot to me in the beginning.

After digging around for a few minutes, I learned what this place actually is. Whether you are looking for music, beauty products, or something entirely different, you'll find all the sites where you can find such stuff. This is the first time I came across a site like this one, so I didn't know what to expect, honestly.

Long lists of sites

You might think that there's a lot more to see here, but it isn't actually. You have different categories, and that's about. You can only see which sites are listed under each category, which fucking sucks. Sure, these lists will come in handy once in a while, but other than that, I don't really see the point.

Whenever I need help finding something, I'll go to Google and start looking for an answer. I doubt I will ever come to a site like Open Directory and start searching for a list of sites that might have something I need. Anyway, that's what you should expect from this place. So, the question is, what can you actually find here?

Simple design

If I had a say in it, I would definitely go with another background color. White just doesn't cut it for me. It's just too bright, and combined with all these broken thumbnails, it just fucking sucks. I know that some places don't want to put a lot of work into creating a site, but this is even worse than that.

They have a couple of tabs at the top of the page, but I can already tell you that one of those tabs doesn't work. If you try clicking on the categories, nothing will happen. If I had to guess, this page should look pretty much the same as the home page of ODir, so I don't really see the point in having that tab up there.

You also have a tab which is there for you to submit new pages. Now, this part of the site made me wonder about a couple of things. It seems like you can add pretty much any page you want, and they will add it. However, if that page turns out not to be correct, they will remove it afterward, or at least that's what they stated on the site. It just seems stupid to let people publish anything they want without some sort of verification first.

If you're interested in the new pages, you should go to the tab called NEU. You'll find the latest stuff here, but I'm not sure how back the list goes. This part doesn't matter as much as actually getting the list, so yeah. If you want to keep up with the latest, you should go to this tab and take a look.

Let's get back to the tabs that don't work. The last one on the list is the information tab. Just like the one with categories, this one doesn't work. I'm not sure what kind of information you would need from this place, but if they bothered to put the tab up there, why didn't they make it work?

Everything from music to gay porn

They really went above and beyond when they decided to make this site. You can find all kinds of things here, and let me tell you something. A lot of stuff you'll see here shouldn't be in the same place. For example, you have some lists featuring sites meant for furniture, and right below that, you see gay porn sites where horny guys drill each other's butts as their lives depend on it.

Don't get me wrong, it's nice to have a ton of stuff in one place, but I personally wouldn't look for stuff to jerk off to and purchase skin products in the same place. That's just how my brain works, but if you have a different opinion, good for you.

In total, they have over 30 different lists, and each one of these lists has plenty of sites included. So, you'll have a chance to see hundreds of different sites here, but that doesn't matter if you're not interested in most of the stuff they have to offer.

Broken external links

It looks like there's a lot more broken stuff than it seems. I've gone over the broken thumbnails and tabs, but that's not all. It's beginning to look like more stuff here doesn't work, rather than the other way around, but hey, I'm here to do a review, not tell them how to fix their mistakes.

After clicking on one of these sites, you'll see the list of similar sites right below. Well, as it turns out, most of those links don't work. You'll just keep getting errors if you try to open one of those sites. I can't figure out why they even bothered adding so much stuff that doesn't even work. I would understand if one or two links didn't work, but that wasn't the case. Only a couple of links worked, and there were a lot of those links here.

I'm not sure if the same thing will happen for every one of the sites you choose, but that's what happened for a couple of sites I had chosen. My luck must really suck, or simply the site isn't working properly. I'm leaning towards the second option.

Mix of German and English

The thing that bothers me more than it should is the fact that you'll see some stuff in English and other stuff in German. What the fuck is up with that? It should be either in one language or the other one, definitely not both. If they wanted to make a site that's available in multiple languages, they should have added a feature that would let you choose between the two. The way they made it makes no fucking sense!

For example, you get all these meta descriptions in English, but for some reason, categories are in German. In what world does that make sense? I guess it would be a lot worse if it was the other way around, but still, they should consider fixing that because this place is kind of unusable the way it is currently.

I only understood those parts that were similar to English. Both languages are from the same language group, so it kind of makes sense you understand a bit of both. However, there are certain examples that aren't even close to the actual meaning. I can't be roaming around the site hoping I pick the correct category just because it seems like the correct one. Trust me, I made that mistake and ended up in a group of sites that weren't the ones I had in mind. Instead of looking at computer parts, I ended up with a ton of sites that were filled with cooking recipes. Let's just hope that doesn't happen to you as well.

Broken lists of sites that would be useful otherwise

I get the whole idea behind ODir, but in reality, it's just pointless. Whenever you need something, you go to Google and start looking for that same thing. Well, this site is a place where you'll find a ton of sites under different categories, and the point is to help you find all the places where you can find certain stuff. For example, if you are looking for beauty products, you'll find all the sites that offer those items. There are all kinds of sites here, so you'll get help with finding new recipes, porn, all kinds of products and so much more.

Even though they included a ton of sites here, I would probably never waste time to get help here because a lot of stuff doesn't work. You don't even have the basic search, and the stuff that's available doesn't work. You'll find plenty of external links, but most of them don't work, so it's taking up space only. Also, most of the thumbnails for these sites don't work, so you'll be going blind most of the time.